The Traditional Family Is Dancing to a Whole New Beat

The underground party scene of the late 1990s—still a long way from a mainstream breakthrough—frequently found itself within the crosshairs of politicians and the national media. From the shutdown of Washington, D.C.’s infamous Buzz club night, to the negative headlines fetched by New York City’s Twilo, to the Draconian cabaret law enacted to close down late-night parties in New Orleans, the line in the sand was always clear: Kids do bad things when exposed to dance music, and parents should beware.

That narrative gets revisited each time a tragedy occurs; but as electronic dance music establishes deeper roots within pop culture, the hysteria rightfully subsides. The scene has evolved, and so have the socially acceptable norms and concepts of family within and outside the culture. An early-’90s rave “family” might have consisted of a bunch of kids huddled in a dark warehouse somewhere, listening to Roger Sanchez or LTJ Bukem. Parents? Fuck ’em.

The scene has provided an outlet that lets my kids be creative. It has shown them that they need to be responsible, and it has taught them to be loving.

But fast-forward 15 years, and mainstream acceptance of EDM has turned everything on its head. In a scene once synonymous with depravity, the notion of family is being reinforced or completely made over. For some, the music has become a focal point for family bonding, eradicating emotional barriers and the anachronistic notion that parents can’t also be peers to their children. At events all over the country, you’ll find families of all kinds who openly and proudly rave together.

Take the “Sin Family,” a fixture within the Madison, Wisconsin, party scene. Nicknamed after the seven deadly sins, the clan consists of four kids; Jules, their mother (who answers “forever 27” when asked her age); Scott (age 44), their birth father; and Mark (34), their legal guardian and Jules’ current partner—not exactly your typical family on a typical family outing.

Most of the kids were home-schooled by Jules, a 15-year veteran party promoter. Necessity dictated that her kids grow up around music from an early age, and the law made it possible: In Wisconsin, children of any age may go into a bar with a legal guardian of drinking age.

“I think the rave scene has been a great place to raise the kids,” says Jules. “When they were little, I could leave my kids wherever and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to take off and do this’ and know that they were going to be safe, they were going to be watched, that everybody had their back.”

Such an unorthodox upbringing would curdle June Cleaver’s milky-white morality, but it lent the kids maturity beyond their years, while serving as a catalyst for artistic endeavors.

“It’s provided an outlet that lets them be creative when they want to be creative; it gives them an outlet for different talents,” says Jules. “It has shown them that they need to be responsible, and it has taught them to be loving.”

Ridge—age 22 and the eldest of the four kids—is a trained electrician and works for DanceSafe, an organization promoting drug safety and education. Sonnet, the precocious, wise-beyond-her-years 18-year-old and youngest child, started Sundust Hoops & Apparel, which sponsors hoopers and makes custom LED hoops. She considers her parents her best friends and always finds time for music events with them, but she adds that individual adventures are also encouraged. “We go for the family experiences, but we also spread out for our own.”

Before we started going to concerts, it was just lectures from him … it was never a close, lovey relationship.

For the Garday family, it’s all about the group: “The family that raves together stays together” is the mantra of Eric and Laura—known in their party scene as “EDM Dad” and “EDM Mom”—and their children Lance, Elyse and Sarah.

It came about innocently enough: Self-described “closet EDM addicts for years,” Eric and Laura had never considered going to an actual event. When Eric’s birthday rolled around in 2012, Elyse—already into the music herself—proclaimed to her mother: “You need to take him to an EDM event; that’s all there is to it.”

Eric and Laura thought they would be treated as “old creepers,” but they were blown away by the acceptance. When a photo-booth picture of them appeared on an event promoter’s Facebook page, it went viral, and EDM Mom and Dad were born. Now, 4,600 Instagram fans later, the kids say it’s impossible to go out without their parents getting mobbed with picture requests.

Lance, the last member of the family to finally attend an event, jokingly laments that he can’t even hang out with his own friends because they keep asking his parents to draw up adoption papers. But his parents weren’t always this cool.

“Before we started going to concerts, it was just lectures from him,” said Lance of his father. “Not demeaning, it was to help us get better; but it was never a close, lovey relationship.”

Before joining his family’s adventures, Lance says he was in a bad place: angry, depressed, isolated and close-minded. But then, what he describes as “a wrecking ball” swung through their lives, demolishing the barriers and secrecy that dominated the family dynamic. Their shared love for music, and the connection to others that it provides, has created new friendships both within and outside the family.

“We’re all more optimistic as a group,” says Lance. “Things are just easier when you’re happy.”

While she’s still my mom when I need her to be, it was important for me to let go of societal stigmas that would be placed or boundaries that people would have with their parents.

For Ian and his mother Erin—a massage therapist, dance teacher, and “man coach” (teaching men communication skills “to better understand women”)—the shared music experience technically began before he was even born. Erin, then a 17-year-old New Yorker, didn’t have much time for raves. “I did go to one when I was five months pregnant with Ian, and so it began,” she says. “That was my first one,” jokes Ian.

But it wasn’t until 2008 that Ian was introduced to EDM by a DJ his mother was dating. Sometime later, after a nasty breakup between Erin and a subsequent boyfriend, Ian finally convinced her to come out to a party with him.

“I had grown enough as an adult that I didn’t feel like I needed to worry about getting in trouble, or what her judgments might be,” says Ian, reflecting on his decision to invite Erin out. Naturally, as a mother and someone who thought she was well past her expiration date for going to a rave, she had an absolute fear of drugs and drug culture.

“I always felt that was a barrier between arguably one of the biggest parts of my life and my relationship with her,” says Ian, calling the music and the scene surrounding it the biggest passion of his life. “Honestly, I just wanted her to understand it better.”

They initially experimented with smaller parties, but it was Beyond Wonderland in 2011 that really tipped the scales.

“To have kind of the gestalt, to be under the open sky, to have all the lights,” describes Erin, “and to see how much the music affected him and made him move, and how he was simultaneously transported elsewhere and completely right here, saying, ‘I’m so glad you’re having this experience with me’”—it was the proverbial hook, line and sinker.

As both embraced the music, and Ian’s friends embraced his mother as one of their own, the two started to see each other as friends and equals, rather than as authoritarian mother and subordinate son. Erin recalls seeing Ian take charge with his group of friends. She wondered aloud, “When the hell did you become such a leader?”

“While she’s still my mom when I need her to be, it was important for me to let go of societal stigmas that would be placed or boundaries that people would have with their parents,” says Ian, “so that she was able to have a full experience.”

Techno music literally pulled me out of a wheelchair.

Their newfound bond was so strong that the two started a company together. Under the name Mother Son Communication, they “coach mothers and sons on how to have more open communication about drugs and sex and all kinds of things that sons don’t want to tell mothers,” explains Erin, “or we don’t want to hear.”

Like Erin, Blake Garlock and his child forged a life-changing bond through EDM; but for Blake, the music also saved his sanity.

In 1998, Blake was laid up in the hospital, his back broken from a car crash. His daughter Alexis was just a toddler at the time, but the sight of her dad in a wheelchair would become a common one as she grew up. He walked again, but after his fusion screws broke in half, he was back in a wheelchair in 2004. Another surgery allowed him to go back to work for two years, but in late 2006, he found himself in a wheelchair for a third time. By 2007, his depression was all-consuming—until music stepped in.

“I ended up going to a house party that was basically an underground rave,” recalls Blake. “I just fell in love with the people and the music, and I wanted more for myself.” The burning desire to dance motivated him over the following months as he learned to walk again. “Techno music literally pulled me out of a wheelchair.”

The inspirational power of music would be put to the ultimate test in 2010, when Blake faced his worst injury of all: He was accidentally kneed in the back in a swimming pool, tearing every disc from his tailbone to his mid-back. Though he’s still not the same, the music has managed to keep him on his feet through it all.

It was no small occurrence then, when three years ago, Blake noticed Alexis dabbling in the music that had saved him. So he did what any normal parent would do: Put together a party for her and her friends.

“I actually threw the first rave that she’s ever been to, and I threw it solely so she could understand what the real scene was about,” says Blake.

Now Alexis’ friends are hooked on the music and her dad. “All my friends are extremely jealous,” she quips with pride.

Blake thinks of the music as a natural extension of the closeness they already had. “I really enjoy walking up to her in the crowd and seeing her jumping around and having a good time,” he says. “As a father, it’s a great feeling.”

But to young Alexis, whom Blake calls an “old soul,” it is something more. “It actually has changed my entire life because I learned a lot about his feelings toward me,” she says. “I gained a lot of respect for him because it showed me that we’re more alike that I thought we were.”

The notion of “family” has come a long way since the nuclear, Leave it to Beaver version of a mother/homemaker, father/breadwinner, and two children who sat down every night to eat their TV dinners while guffawing wholesomely at the Ed Sullivan Show. We now live in an age where divorce rates have never been higher, and blended families are commonplace. Ask someone today who their family is, and you’re bound to get a wide range of answers.

It stands to reason, then, that the definitions of how music fits into the family picture is morphing as well. Whether it’s a mother raising her children in the EDM scene because of the unwavering support it provides them, or children transcending teen angst and the accompanying knee-jerk exclusion of parents to discover bonds they might otherwise have never known, family in this context is bound just as much by beats as it is by blood.

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